"Roll stock" is a term that is commonly used to describe cylindrical rolls or tubular rolls of a selected width of thin materials. Such items include paper products, plastic film products, thin gauge metals, roofing sheets, and various other thin materials. Importantly, these various cylindrical or tubular shaped rolls are typically shipped and stored on pallets. Most often, such storage is provided in tiers of rolls, and, most commonly, the rolls are horizontally oriented above the pallets. In order to stabilize and support the cylindrical or tubular rolls, stacking supports have typically been employed.
Various U.S. patents show stacking supports for receiving stacked rolls of materials. One such disclosure is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,732 to Bell, which teaches a support and spacing member for roll stock formed from expanded polystyrene foam. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,196 to Butler shows a roll support member that, like Bell the '732 patent, is formed utilizing expanded polystyrene foam. However, certain characteristics of the polystyrene foam make it less than ideal for use in roll stock supports. This is because expanded polystyrene is rather rigid, relatively brittle, and thus has a minimum of structural flexibility. Additionally, polystyrene foam rolls supports do not compactly nest together and thus storage of roll supports manufactured of polystyrene or similar plastic materials takes up considerable space.
One alternative to polystyrene foam roll supports has been the development and use of roll supports made from papier-mache. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,080,314 issued Jan. 14, 1992 to Moyer et al for a ROLL STACKER teaches a roll support formed of papier-mache. Unfortunately, in many circumstances, papier-mache is inadequate for roll stock supports. For example, the strength of papier-mache roll stock supports rapidly degrades which they get wet. Consequently, papier-mache roll sock supports must be protected from the weather, and even cannot be used in many humid environments. Such weather protection is especially difficult during transport, and requires that such supports be shipped within a fully enclosed container or trailer.
Further, even though roll supports manufactured from papier-mache have improved stackability over foam type roll supports, because papier-mache roll stackers must be of substantial thickness to support the weight of many materials, it would nevertheless be desirable to develop a material that would further reduce the storage space requirements of roll supports, to free up warehouse space. Thus, there remains a need for a strong, weather-proof, preferably recyclable material which can be utilized in the production of compactly stackable roll supports which can be stored with minimal warehouse volume requirements.